Allow me to get to the point at warp speed: JJ Abrams’ Start Trek Into Darkness is not a significant exploration into the deep space of the human condition. It does not boldly go where no film has gone before. This doesn’t make it a bad movie. It doesn’t even stop it from being a great movie. It simply means that Abrams approaches larger, more existential questions and themes as a way of bringing some emotional depth to his scenes and characters rather than as an exploration of those themes. He is putting James T. Kirk in situations that are complex and intense, but it’s done as a storytelling device, not as a philosophical exploration.
The contrast to this is probably best seen when you compare Abrams’ Star Trek with Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Let’s take The Dark Knight as an example. Nolan uses the Batman universe of characters to explore our contemporary wrestling match with postmodernity, morality, ethics, and more. The difficult issues of our time and the human condition are grappled with while Batman swings from grappling hooks. The film is about the complexity of our time and it is presented as a Batman movie. This is very different from what Abrams has done.
In Into Darkness, Abrams seems to have started first with the universe(s?) of Star Trek and brought questions of morality, ethics, and devotion into the story in order to give gravity to what would otherwise be the weightless space of warp speed and fancy ships. To draw viewers into the story, Spock and Kirk need to battle with questions of value, logic [we are dealing with a Vulcan after all!], and friendship in order for them to feel relatable and human. Here, Abrams makes a Star Trek movie that people can relate to rather than making a film about larger issues that happens to take place in the Star Trek universe.
In the end, it’s a matter of starting points.
Here is one way it plays out in the film: Early on there is a scene that feels eerily familiar. After the bombing of a building in a metropolitan area [a future version of San Francisco], surveillance camera footage is used to identify the bomber and a manhunt is declared. I’ll leave the spoilers out of this and not describe much more about the situation other than to say, this moment propels Capt. Kirk, his crew, and the Enterprise on a mission unlike any they have been on before—the nature of which Kirk, Spock and others debate and struggle with throughout the film.
Obviously when Abrams was shooting these scenes many months ago he had no way of knowing that on an April morning in Boston, just weeks before the release of his film, bombs would be set off, surveillance cameras would provide the faces of the bombers, and a manhunt would ensue. The question of how we respond to terrorism, the kind of questions Nolan was exploring in The Dark Knight, are once again faced here in Into Darkness just as we are once again facing them in America. The only difference is, Abrams does little with this theme past using it to create a compelling backdrop for his characters. He is using the tension of a morally complex issue to create a landscape through which to fly his spaceship. And fly through it they do with spectacular effects and great one-liners from Spock, Bones, and Scotty.
None of this makes this a bad movie. I suspect that if anyone tried to present this to him as a critique of the film he might respond by saying, “Damn it, Jim, I’m a filmmaker, not a philosopher.”
And, I think that’s ok. Let’s not ask something of our films that the filmmakers aren’t trying to provide for us. If we can walk into theaters knowing something of the way directors approach the medium we are more likely to engage with their art well.
When it comes to big films coming out, Nolan and Abrams are two important people to understand. There are few people Hollywood wants their franchises in the hands of than the two of them.
In just a few weeks, The Man of Steel, Nolan’s next superhero experiment [as a producer this time, not a director], will be swooping into theaters. It is probably safe to assume that his touch will be felt on the film. Superman will likely be battling something much more than kryptonite in the hands of the wrong person. Prepare yourself to fly into the depths of the human condition.
Just this week it was reported that Nolan was approached to take his stab at the next Bond movie. If he finds the time in his schedule to do it, don’t expect 007 to be filled with lots of campy humor. Nolan would be much more likely to continue the more recent trend of Bond films and take James deeper into his own demons, and in doing so, inviting us deeper into our own.
And, in a time soon to come, in a galaxy not far away, Abrams will be swapping his “Trek” for a “Wars” and bring us the highly anticipated next episode of the Star Wars franchise. Again, it’s likely safe to assume that Abrams will have plenty of amazing action, conflict, drama, and wit, but as he walks us into the struggle with The Dark Side, don’t expect it to be too deep.
Abrams and Nolan represent two distinct approaches to the silver screen. Each is a master at his craft. Each is a storyteller of the highest degree. You don’t have to love one more than the other. I for one can’t wait for what’s next from either one of them, no matter what it is. But part of loving them well is not asking them to be the other.